POST-GAZETTE - Res Publica

The Massachusetts Republican Party

by David Trumbull

December 17, 2004

Last month we elected, by a very comfortable majority, a conservative Republican president. Republicans had net gains in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States. Many analysts agree that our 2004 victories were, at least in part, and probably a large part, due to Democrats and independents who voted for Republicans because the Republican Party, at the national level, is the party of common-sense and reason, not the trendy left-wing theories of a few Massachusetts liberals.

Now contrast that with Massachusetts, where our GOP candidates were all over the political map -- pro-abort/pro-life; pro-gay marriage/anti-gay marriage; etc. We now know the results. We had a net loss of one in the Massachusetts Senate and of two in the House of Representatives. We Republicans so botched this election that we must take a careful look at what we did wrong, and put the wheels back on the party wagon.

By the way, I am not a single issue voter and I don't expect that all Republicans have to agree on everything. But I do think you need to have at least some conservative positions if you are running as a Republican. The label "Republican" has to mean something or the voters won't take a risk on the candidate. If we Republicans consistently run candidates who are at somewhat more conservative that the Democrats, then the voters will know that if they want a candidate at least somewhat more conservative they should vote Republican.

It's no wonder that, while Bush got 40%, our local candidates only got around 20%. The voters, to the extent they knew anything about the GOP ticket below the President, must have been utterly baffled by the totally unmatched assortment of losers! The voters have, with good reason, no idea what, if anything, the Republican Party in Massachusetts stands for. Forty percent liked Bush, but half of them didn't know whether to support a local Republican candidate because they did not know whether the local candidate supported the President!

The Massachusetts Republican Party is a sick man. It's time that real Republicans to build a competitive Republican Party. Who's with me?

David Trumbull is the chairman of the Boston Ward Three Republican Committee; he may be contacted at (617) 742-6881 or chairman@ward3boston.org. Boston's Ward Three includes the North End, West End, part of Beacon Hill, downtown, waterfront, Chinatown, and part of the South End.

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